Digital investigation collective Bellingcat to expand into NL

The British research collective Bellingcat is planning to expand into the Netherlands and to open a permanent office in The Hague, the organisation confirmed to DutchNews.nl on Friday.

‘The current plan is to open an office in The Hague, which will have teams working on Yemen, Syria, and Libya,’ founder Eliot Higgins said. The office will also host ‘a team focused on working with local groups on local issues’ and more MH17 revelations are on the way, he said.

Higgins, in the Netherlands for the Den Bosch Data Week, told the NRC in an interview on Friday that the organisation has applied for funding from the Postcode Lottery foundation to help establish the first Bellingcat operation outside the UK.

The aim is to set up an operation in the Netherlands to support the work of the International Criminal Court in The Hague with open source material, the NRC said.

Bellingcat was founded in 2014 after a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign and has since hit the headlines with revelations about shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine and the Skripal poisoning case in Britain, among others

The organisation funds its operations by giving workshops to journalists, students and civil servants as well as donations from both charitable institutions and private individuals.

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